Roll of the Dice: Answering Machine

If you weren’t on the planet during the Born in the U.S.A. era, here’s a quick history lesson:

Way back in the 1980s, pretty much every American household had an answering machine.

An answering machine was kind of like voice mail, except that it was a tape recorder that lived in your house and answered your phone for you. When it answered a call, it would play an outgoing message, and then (just like with voice mail) it would record the caller’s incoming message after a tone. When you returned home, you’d rewind the tape and play back your messages.

By the mid-1980s, answering machines had grown from a novelty item into a necessity, and the creativity of your outgoing message was a topic of frequent conversation and judgment.

If you had an answering machine, it’s a safe bet that at one point or another you agonized over coming up with a greeting that would make people smile or laugh. We all did–even rock stars.

Okay, that wasn’t real.

But still, I guarantee you that even Bruce Springsteen spent more time than he’d have cared to admit coming up with a great answering machine message.

It was time well spent, though, because his actual answering machine message was pretty darn awesome. And yes, this one is a genuine, unreleased, original Springsteen composition.

“Answering Machine” (as this unreleased gem has come to be known) is a fine example of a classic early-eighties Springsteen song: a rocking, uptempo melody that masks the disconnection and alienation in Bruce’s lyrics.

Yeah, there ain’t nobody home
Yeah, there ain’t nobody home
Yeah, there ain’t nobody home to come to the telephone

I don’t know when I’m coming back
I don’t know when I’m coming back
I don’t know when I’m coming back, if you got something to say, you better spit it out, Jack

While we don’t know exactly when “Answering Machine” was written, the reprise of the back/Jack couplet suggests that it’s a sequel–or perhaps even a prequel–to “Hungry Heart.” One imagines the narrator of that 1980 classic recording this outgoing message in his Baltimore home just before he goes out for his fateful ride.

Unlike “Hungry Heart,” however, Bruce offers the narrator of “Answering Machine” the possibility of redemption. By leaving the metaphorical door open (“I don’t know when I’m coming back” suggests that he might someday), Bruce waters a seed of hope for his narrator’s return home after his latest Kingstown fling.

With “Answering Machine,” Bruce once again displays his impressive talent for songwriting economy, this time honed to a razor-sharp edge. In a mere thirty seconds, we experience and empathize with his character’s loneliness, self-loathing (“there ain’t nobody home”), rootlessness, and resilience. It’s wholly appropriate that he recorded it solo, Nebraska-style, rather than with his band.

“Answering Machine” is a tour de force that belongs in every Springsteen fan’s collection.

Answering Machine
Recorded: Unknown
Never released
Never performed

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